# How illiterate OTHER boards are... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 22, 2002, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058 "2002-11-22T00:39:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![flapcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@flapcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flapcats)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/1 "2002-11-22T00:39:38Z")
Okay, I’ve been away from SDMB for a few weeks. Have been reading AVS forum for resarch… OMG! since leaveing the SD, Every day I come across a horrefying grammatical mistakes and spelling errors Are all other forums this bad? I could make this a poll by asking: Who get’s annoyed by dumb mistakes like ‘Your’ and ‘You’re’ ect. I know theyr attempting to get a point across and its not a science forum… But…! If someone were to offer an opinion in a newspaper and fill it with spelling errors… do you feel the information they’re providing to be slightly discredited by their literacy or is this just elitism. Perhaps I’m just used to the SDMB level: Even in the Pit people can spot the error in ‘REDICULOUS replacement lamp PRICES!!!’ (Must be my childhood…) xx Flapcats. ( PS: 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/2 "2002-11-22T01:04:54Z")
Gaudere’s ears must be burning. I realise I may be missing the joke, but was the smiley meant to cover resarch leaveing horrefying get’s ect theyr “If someone were to offer an opinion in a newspaper and fill it with spelling errors… do you feel the information they’re providing to be slightly discredited by their literacy or is this just elitism” or all of the above? Oh, er, “yes” and :). ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/3 "2002-11-22T01:07:10Z")
Damn you **Everton** , you beat me to the punch. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/4 "2002-11-22T01:42:46Z")
Okay, this isn’t on literacy, per se, (though I could complain about that, too), but in the same vein . . . I’ve been participating in some other boards lately which are dedicated to one special purpose or another, and I made up my mind when I joined that I wasn’t going to get involved in any controversial discussions about religion or politics or whatnot. I was there for a specific purpose, and I wasn’t going to antagonize the other posters with irrelevant off-topic debates. The consequence of this discussion is that I’ve had to watch one horrible fallacy after another fall to the figurative floor, and . . . just . . . lie there. Anyone posting that crap at the SDMB would have had any number of posters, on both sides of the issue, tearing their shoddy reasoning to pieces. Instead, the rotten post just . . . sits there. Or worse, they’ll be cheered on by another poster! And just grit my teeth and sit on my hands. AARRGGGHH! ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/5 "2002-11-22T02:14:58Z")
Discipline, Poddy, discipline. Would you really WANT to argue with them? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/6 "2002-11-22T02:15:26Z")
They’re not all bad. Most of the message boards I go to are ok, most don’t have as many articulate posters as here, but people are understandable. The Sims message board is the glaring exception to this. Here’s a real message from there, poster’s name removed to protect the guilty: "Subject: christmas downloads.u no u want 2 help! does ne1 no where i can get some good christmas theme objects and stuff. ne help would be very much appreciated(sp?) " Close to 1/3rd of the messages are that bad if not worse… ---
**Author:** ![Arden\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@Arden\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arden_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/7 "2002-11-22T05:40:59Z")
Jeesh, elfkin. That one hurt to read. I don’t want to contemplate _worse_. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/8 "2002-11-22T06:24:50Z")
elfin, maybe that poster had some sort of voice activated gizmo for posting. (But that is pretty extreme.) The worst forum that I have seen is a specific “New Age” forum that discourages any form of critical thinking. The forum has been apparently unsupervised (by the well-known publishing house that sponsors it) for the last couple of years and has a sort of “Lord of the Flies” meets guru-speak atmosphere. Some of the posters the most mean-spirited and illiterate “spiritual” people I’ve ever run across. There are also lots of people who just don’t quite jive with what they claim. One woman who says that she teaches English and science in high school referred to her mother’s chemotherapy as “kimo.” Another ends almost ever sentence with a question mark as in “I wonder what you are doing?” My comments are not meant as a put-down for all New Age forums or participants. But this one particular forum is so bad that the “guru” whose ideas are supposed to be discussed no longer links to this website from his own website. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/9 "2002-11-22T06:28:29Z")
God, I hate it when I am talking about the illiterate and then leave out a word in a sentence! See the red glow on your monitor? That’s my face. ---
**Author:** ![manwithaplan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@manwithaplan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manwithaplan)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/10 "2002-11-22T09:26:25Z")
We’ve all come across message boards with questionable standards of written expression. Thankfully, that cannot be said of the SD. Nonetheless, I’m a bit uneasy about the amount of threads and posts which extol the literacy, intelligence, erudition, wittiness etc. of the average Doper. Maybe I’m being too reserved but I can’t help feeling that it’s all a bit self-congratulary and smug. What I’m inexpertly trying to say is that, to borrow a phrase from our nearest neighbours, it’s just not the done thing, old boy. ---
**Author:** ![manwithaplan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@manwithaplan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manwithaplan)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/11 "2002-11-22T11:46:43Z")
Bugger - self-congratulatory ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/12 "2002-11-22T12:07:09Z")
I love all the “gauderism” happening in this thred. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/13 "2002-11-22T12:09:13Z")
DYSWIDT? 😃 BTW: > [@](#): > > **to borrow a phrase from _our nearest neighbours_, it’s just not the done thing, old boy** I think that would be “boyo” not “old boy”, then. ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/14 "2002-11-22T12:13:21Z")
Yahoo, Yahoo, Yahoo. Their messageboards are bastions of ignorance, and go completely unchallenged. It’s scary to find out what people believe. ---
**Author:** ![manwithaplan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@manwithaplan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manwithaplan)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/15 "2002-11-22T12:42:15Z")
> [@](#): > > I think that would be “boyo” not “old boy”, then. Actually, I suppose it would be “wee man” or some tartanism. ---
**Author:** ![Gorgon\_Heap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f475e1/32.png) [@Gorgon\_Heap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorgon_Heap)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/16 "2002-11-22T13:22:49Z")
“wee man” Bwaheheheheh hhahahahahahah!!! Interestingly, I mentioned something akin to this in a thread just yesterday. Here it is … > [@](#): > > always amazes me how hung-up some of you get about decorum. > > Have any of you ever posted to other message boards? Do you know how chaotic, senseless and grammatically vacuous they are? > > Maybe we are all just a little too spoiled here. Everyone thinks so highly of themselves that when someone make a couple mistakes we start playing politics, shunning them for their social faux pas. 'Tis true. I’m not sure if we’re wholly undeserving of a little self-ritiousness, but sometimes it does come back to bite us. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/17 "2002-11-22T13:48:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by manwithaplan \* > \*\*Actually, I suppose it would be “wee man” or some tartanism. \*\* Depends where you’re standing (and what you define as your country). Looking at a map, I believe Dublin’s nearest neighbour is Wales. But I’m being far to pedantic. Wibble! Wibble! Arse! ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/18 "2002-11-22T13:50:39Z")
I’d say Kildare, Meath and Wicklow might have have issue with that Jjimm 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/19 "2002-11-22T14:03:41Z")
Now who’s being pedantic? ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058/20 "2002-11-22T14:05:59Z")
Which Tyler. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-illiterate-other-boards-are/138058.md?page=2)